PARK CITY, UTAH, January 25, 2026 — Every year at the Sundance Film Festival, producers come together to celebrate and honor the independent filmmaking community of producers. Today, at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival Producers Celebration presented by Amazon MGM Studios, held at The Park in Park City, Utah, producers of films featured in the program came together for the Sundance Institute | Amazon MGM Studios Producers Awards and a keynote address by Shane Boris, producer of Fire of Love, Navalny, and projects premiering at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival including Time and Water and The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist. Winners of the Sundance Institute | Amazon MGM Studios Producers Awards were announced, with two $10,000 grants — one for fiction and the other for nonfiction — awarded to producers Apoorva Guru Charan (Take Me Home) and Dawne Langford (Who Killed Alex Odeh?). Both films are premiering at the 2026 Festival. In addition to the keynote and award winners, other speakers include Sundance Institute’s Michelle Satter, Kristin Feeley, Shira Rockowitz, and Maria Clement, as well as Rachel Kiner-Lucas, Senior Acquisitions Executive, from Amazon MGM Studios.

Shane Boris works as a producer on films that take risks in search of something singular. Recent films premiering at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival include Time and Water and The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist. His other works include Emmy-nominated King Coal (2023), Academy Award–winning Navalny (2022), Academy Award–nominated Fire of Love (2022), and Academy Award–nominated The Edge of Democracy (2019).

Highlights from Shane Boris’ keynote include:

• [On discovering his passion for producing] “… It went something like this: Growing up I wasn’t sure what I had to offer. I sensed that I could easily connect with others, and I loved listening to them. I would scan for creative sparks with everyone I met. When something sparked, I would see if maybe we could kindle a little flame, and from there maybe turn that into a fire in the form of a moment, a lasting friendship, or a creative collaboration.”

• [On the importance of connection in collaboration] “In between attempts at fitting in, what I remained passionate about was this life of an itinerant listener — that’s how I saw it. I would travel with two passports and eight sets of friends’ house keys in my backpack, staying with anyone that I shared a spark with (often who also had an extra room or couch) and the need for someone to bounce kernels of ideas off of, identify threads that should be followed, and think through ways to actualize their visions. I owe so much to these friends. And then I did this for a filmmaker. And then another. And then another. And then people started calling me a producer.””

• [On how producers can affect change in the industry] “… At the moment, what is getting me through is the company I keep. I have collaborated with some of the best producers in the world. Not only have they helped me navigate extraordinarily challenging circumstances in order to turn ideals into reals, they have made space for me to have a chance to give projects something of value. I can’t thank them enough.”

• [On living inside of the unknown while creating art] “… One thing I can say about the filmmaking process is that we will undoubtedly experience not knowing what to do or where to go, and we will have to figure it out. We will be forced to ask ourselves time and time again how to live spontaneously and improvisationally in relationship with the mystery. And after we respond once, however imperfectly, to the unknown with grace, we will hopefully be able to do it again, and again until we gain a confidence that, as the Chinese folk saying goes, we’ll be able to cross the river by feeling for stones.”

• [Closing words] “One last thing I want to share with you, as we are all celebrating being here — and how rare and beautiful it is to have found each other in this increasingly disconnected world — is also a word of encouragement for the part of you which is reeling from how hard it was to get here (I am saying this to you and I am also telling it to myself): Let’s not be daunted by the suffering of not reaching our ideals, in our art or in our life.”

Recipients of the 2026 Sundance Institute | Amazon MGM Studios Producers Awards were announced during the event, where they each received a $10,000 grant:

The Amazon MGM Studios Fiction Producers Award was given to Apoorva Guru Charan, producer for Take Me Home, which will premiere in the U.S. Dramatic Competition section at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. 

Apoorva Guru Charan is an LA-based producer whose feature film debut, Joyland, premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, winning the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize and the Independent Spirit Award for Best International Feature in 2023. Her second feature, Take Me Home, won Tribeca Festival’s AT&T Untold Stories prize.

The Amazon MGM Studios Nonfiction Producers Award was given to Dawne Langford, producer for Who Killed Alex Odeh?, which will premiere in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. 

Dawne Langford is dedicated to producing independent documentaries, including Check It; Kandahar Journals; Finding Joseph I; The Body Politic, which aired nationally on PBS’ POV in 2024 and was nominated for an Emmy; and Who Killed Alex Odeh?.

The Sundance Institute Producers Program is supported by an endowment from the Sandra and Malcolm Berman Charitable Foundation, with generous additional support from John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Amazon MGM Studios, Wyck Godfrey, Unapologetic Projects, RAMO, APM Music, ESME GRACE, Nina and David Fialkow, Scott and Jennifer Frank, Greg Sarris, Skoll Foundation, Andrea van Beuren, and an anonymous donor.

MEDIA CONTACTS: Tiffany Duersch, tiffany_duersch@sundance.org; Alex Courides, alex_courides@sundance.org; Sylvy Fernández, sylvy_fernandez@sundance.org; Rachel Walker, rachel_walker@sundance.org